Two extra public holidays if coalition captures Putrajaya : Dr M

PETALING JAYA: Pakatan Harapan chairman Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has promised Malaysians that they would give an extra two days holiday should the coalition manage to win the 14th general election.

He said that the Wednesday polling day which falls on May 9 was not suitable as it was a working day.

“Therefore we want to ask for voters to ‘ponteng’ (skip) work (to come out and vote) because what we are doing is for the country.

“Voting is a big responsibility to all Malaysians. Even if they decided to skip work, I think it is ‘halal’ for all of us,” he said during his remarks at the Pakatan Harapan’s briefing for its candidates contesting in the general election.

While the country already declared May 9 as a public holiday, Dr Mahathir said that should Pakatan form the government, it would declare Thursday and Friday in the polling week as public holiday.

“If we include that Wednesday, there will be five days of holidays. This country has many public holidays, but only for this time.”

Later at a press conference, when pointed out that elections were also held on weekdays during Dr Mahathir’s tenure as prime minister, he claimed that there weren’t incidents of cheating during his time.

“It wasn’t critical that time and there weren’t many objections even though it (polls) was held on weekdays. There weren’t objections as severe as today.”